IPUMS DHS Now Releasing Data Multiple Times per Year

The Demographic and Health Survey program is continually collecting and releasing new data; at this writing, nineteen countries are collecting or processing data for standard DHS surveys. Researchers want the latest data for countries of interest, as soon as those data become available. To minimize the wait between the original DHS data release and the release of integrated data, IPUMS DHS is now releasing data multiple times a year.

Initially, IPUMS DHS released data once per year, in the spring before the Population Association of America conference. In 2017, by contrast, IPUMS DHS released new data three times:

Six newly released samples and 3,000 new variables in March;

Data for Morocco and Congo Democratic Republic in July; and

Contextual variables joining GPS data on sample clusters and outside data sources on climate, agriculture, and social conditions in October.

In 2018, IPUMS DHS is on track to release data at least three times. In April, we released the latest samples for Ethiopia, India, and Malawi, plus new data for Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen and for household members as a new unit of analysis. In July, we released the latest sample for Uganda plus biometric data (on height, weight, and anemia) for women of childbearing age in the standard recode (IR) files.

We tentatively plan to release the following new data this fall:

Three samples for Lesotho

Nine samples for Senegal

Four samples for Namibia

Three samples for Burundi

One sample for Afghanistan

One sample for Myanmar

One sample for Angola

The proposed fall release additions will bring the number of countries in IPUMS DHS to 35 and the number of samples to 140.

Story by Miriam L. King
Integrated Demographic and Health Surveys (IPUMS DHS) project